Don't miss this one! - Rated 
If you have any interest at all in the VietNam War you should not miss this book. It puts a face on all those whose names are inscribed on The Wall. Guaranteed to break your heart!
Once you start reading, you won't put it down. - Rated
I recently bought this book while visting Arlington National Cemetary. It made me undertand more about what was going on here in the United States with families only knowing things about the Vietnam War from what they saw on television. I just could not put this book down for one second. This book even made me cry many times and made me swollow hard tears. We musn't forget those who went over there to fight a war our government tried to win. We should remember them, whether they came home or not.
It broke my heart to think I lived it and was untouched. - Rated
I first read Shrapnel in the Heart shortly after its release, having bought it at the Vietnam Vets Memorial. I cannot believe that I was in college, and then newly married when all of Vietnam was going on and I was virtually untouched. I only know of one person "on the wall" and he was a college classmate, commissioned on Graduation day and killed 10 months later. Now I have two sons, graduates of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, one a Marine in Artillery and I cannot imagine war, or their never coming home. One of the dead soldier's stories always haunts me... the boy was several weeks shy of his nineteenth birthday and he hadn't even gotten his wisdom teeth yet. How sad to be his mother, sister, friend, fellow soldier. It is a sad accounting of some of America's darkest days.
A book for everyone that needs perspective in their lives. - Rated
A letter I wrote to Laura Palmer after years of reading her book again and again... Dear Ms. Palmer:
"Shrapnel in the Heart" keeps everything in my life in perspective. Green Berets aren't supposed to cry, but we do. I cannot read your book without an onset of tears. But crying is a skill I acquired in Vietnam and your book takes me back.
I quoted two short letters from your book in our employee newsletter in hopes that others would realize that things could be, and have been much worse. Many of my employees cried too.
A couple of years ago I left a bloody Viet Cong flag at the wall with a note of apology. The note wasn't much, but getting to the wall was harder for me than Jump School, Ranger School and Special Forces training combined.
Please, do it again. Capture the thoughts left at the wall from 1987 forward. You started this thing, now it must be continued. Your "Shrapnel in the Heart" is my psychotherapist. Write another so that some other vet can have a life saving catharsis.
Thanks for soothing the pain over the years.
Roy Fouts
President and CEO
So touching it must be read in small doses! - Rated
Many books about Viet Nam focus on the military person - - this book not only shares the grief of the wives and mothers left behind, but the feelings of loss felt by brothers and sisters - - it took me months to get through the introduction. The focus of the book is on items left by families at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington D.C. - - I highly recommend the book, but be prepared: It WILL pull at your heart strings!
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